Leda was giving me a chance to ask her to stay. She was giving me an out, even after everything I had done. All I had to do was swallow my pride and admit that I was wrong.
I could do it. I could say the right words and keep Leda here with me to ensure her safety.
“Right,” I said instead, my voice sounding odd to my own ears. “Nothing you can do.”
Turning, I walked out of the room, not bothering to hear anything else she had to say. This was the right thing. With her gone, safe with her brother, I could move on and make sure that I took care of Adrian, solidifying my place at the top once more. It was the only goal I had.
Emil was waiting for me, inclining his head respectfully when I walked downstairs. “Don.”
“There will be a car coming,” I told him as I moved to my study. “For Leda. It will be one of her brother’s men.”
“She’s leaving?” Emil asked, surprise filtering into his voice.
I rounded the desk, eyeing him. “Is that a problem for you?” I knew he was probably confused. After all, I had asked him to get a fucking engagement ring for her just yesterday.
He cleared his throat. “No. I will alert the others.”
“Good,” I said as I settled in my chair. “Once she’s gone, we’re all going back to the city. Carmine D’Agostino has been put on house arrest. The game just changed. We’re dealing with much bigger things than Adrian. No more hiding. I need my Mafia back.”
“Yes, Don,” Emil smiled. “Anything else?”
“No,” I bit out. “Ready the men.”
He left, closing the door behind him, and I sagged against the chair, my jaw clenched. Leda was leaving. She really was going to leave.
What the hell was I doing? It was the right decision for her to go back to the bosom of her family, where her brother could give her what she needed and leave me alone.
But in the same breath, I knew there was going to be a big, gaping hole inside me for not having her right upstairs, not waking up to her each morning and burying myself in her warmth. If I let her walk out of this house right now, I wasn’t going to see her again.
I couldn’t allow myself to see her again. This was it. I was releasing the Mafia princess and hoping that her brother could keep her safe.
I wiped a hand over my face, allowing the hurt to linger for a few more minutes before I balled it up and pushed it deep inside the locked box of my tortured soul. It was time that I focused on what I wanted my future to be, on the title that was mine and mine alone.
It was time for me to be a Don again.
Chapter 45
Leda
I was leaving.
I pulled on the jacket and zipped it up to cover the T-shirt underneath, fighting back the tears. When Lucas had come to tell me that he was sending me home to my brother, I had thought it was yet another ploy to either get me to start to trust him again or to further destroy me. He had once said that he would never let me leave, and of everything he had told me, that was the one thing I would have said he wouldn’t give up.
That he wouldn’t give me up.
Now, though, Lucas had proved me wrong yet again. Hewasgiving me up.
Tears crowded my vision, and I wiped them away quickly. It didn’t matter what I felt or what I was supposed to feel. Lucas didn’t care about me enough to listen to me; this was exactly what my father wanted. He wanted Nico to expose himself, and the best way for him to draw my brother out was to use me as bait. Sending his men after me, likely his second-in-command, would expose me to my father.
He would stop at nothing to get to me.
Grabbing the small backpack that had been stashed in my closet, I looked around the room I hadn’t slept in in a few days. Lucas had wanted me close, and I had all but moved into his bedroom from the moment we had come back from our time in the forest. How in the world was I supposed to forget him lying beside me, his handsome features slack with sleep and letting down his walls just a little without realizing it? Lucas would never know how many times I would wake before he did so I could capture the moment, pretending he was nothing more than a normal guy who was in my bed.
And then, when he would wake, there was no separating us. This was the first morning that I hadn’t woken to his lips on my skin, his ever-present hard cock pressing into me to give us a morning to remember.
I missed it. I missed him. I missed everything that had been good about us, everything that had given me a thought to a good future between us.
Yet he was sending me away like it never mattered to him. A small laugh escaped me as I turned away from the room, heading out of the bedroom. I should have known better. I should have known that Lucas wouldn’t want to keep me.